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Got a question for Mark Shuttleworth?

01-12-2007, 06:26 PM

Just heard back from Mark Shuttleworth that he would be interested in setting up an interview with Phoronix in time for the release of Feisty Fawn. With that said, I will open up some of the questions to the community... If you have any legitimate questions you would like answered by Mark Shuttleworth, please post them in this thread soon. Right now Mark is out traveling, but this should certainly be completed in time for 7.04.

Woah! This is quite an honor. Well, I have a simple question: what is/will be done performance-wise for the next *buntu release(s)? All the talk currently is about eye-candy etc. but us hardcore gamers still want the most out of our hardware. Specifically Kubuntu is said to be particularly sluggish, which I unfortunately have to agree with. Even though it's a very polished release, the lack of "snappiness" left a pretty sour taste in my mouth.

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How has the open invitation to SuSE developers affected Ubuntu development, and has that change (if any) been more or less what was expected?

EDIT: This isn't a question here, but while on the subject of Mark Shuttleworth and Ubuntu I thought I'd bring it up. I hope the efforts that has been put into Ubuntu (and Linux by extension) continue on the same level regardless of if Mark Shuttleworth is able to contribute in the future for whatever reason. It seems like many people believe Ubuntu's success is only because this distribution has such a strong leader who is able to contribute on many levels (technically, financially, and otherwise), and that all that could change depending on what he decides to do with the rest of his life and resources. I'll add more later when I have more time.

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If Mark (who seems like a really nice guy who knows what he wants, judging from the speeches I've seen - oh, btw, great thanks for supporting the spirit of free software with your projects! ) actually wants to answer that kind of question, I'd be interested to hear what he's using "at home", on his desktop - is it Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, something else? Does he use experimental, cutting edge stuff (like 7.04 pereleases right now), the latest stable or even the latest LTS release, in case he's running *ubuntu? What hardware does he run it on?

I'd also like to know what he thinks about free (as in speech) hardware initiatives, like The Open-Graphics Project - or/and if he possibly could work some sources to finally make X1?000-support in "ati"-drivers happen

What does he think of gNewSense?

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Can he get a nice "Linux Gamers Bus Tour" (a symbolic one) going to convince developers to use engines that have linux support? While he is at it, let him know that there is a wealth of Linux Developers who need jobs in these companies.

"Mark Shuttleworth visits Valve"

My spheel below:

If valve likes to license their engine and people are making these "cheap" low cost games (see "Gary's Mod")..isn't Linux the best place to put this tool? Think about it, we love to program anyway. And the steam engine using HLSL in OpenGL would be of huge benefit to them (their pockets anyway). Look what we did with Linus's Kernel?! More games, more cross platform games, more programmers familiar with their engine (think Unix/BSD in the '80's), more people using it to create games, cheap licensing by the time they are done (2010?!)...win win for them and us.

I know it is a lot of simple "one track" thinking. But, other than "man power" they lose nothing. And we have proven that we want to work with them. Now..tell him to ask them "why don't you want to work with us?"

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How much time do we have before you need to put the questions together and send them off? I'm talking with some people about posting their questions here but didn't know what to give them as far as a time frame. Here's one question that came up:

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What are the goals for the Linux Professional Institute Ubuntu certification program? Does this test change with the release of new versions of Ubuntu, or is the test general enough to apply equally to all versions in the foreseeable future? Other than knowing of the existence of this new level of certification, I haven't heard much else about it or what specific topics it covers. I was undecided as to whether or not I should get certified, but the announcement of this test pushed me to get LPIC-1 last year. That said, what is the best reason for getting the Ubuntu certification as well (other than geek points )?

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Mark,
I want to know if Ubuntu is actively engaging HP/Dell/Lenovo or the like to get Ubuntu as factory rollouts? From what I've read (like Phoronix's article on HP as the "SLI Godfather"), these big boys have purchasing power as leverage over the hardware vendors and can force them into supporting Linux - loss of business is a wonderful motivator. Microsoft seems defined the OEM ecosystem and is reaping the benefits of being the only player in town.

I'm guessing OEM's are scared to get into the fray due to technical support costs of adding Linux (any distribution) to their support portfolio but if indeed you truly want to see widespread usage of Linux on the desktop, is Ubuntu willing to reach out to the OEMs and offer free support for a specific OEM's sku and aggressively co-market this partnership? I'd imagine it would be a loss-leading initiative to test the marketplace from Ubuntu's perspective. The OEM's could coordinate (read:bully) their hardware vendors to support the hardware and feel safe in that Ubuntu would cover their technical support costs. In exchange, users who want Ubuntu Linux "certified" equipment have a sku to choose from and refer to all their friends who want the same (effectively putting their money where their mouth is). Without a Microsoft tax, the OEM could rake in a bigger profit on the delta or have a lower price in comparison to the Windows sku. If the sku was visible in the mainstream (more Wall Street Journal than Digg), then other OEM's might be enticed into following suit.

The way I see it, 230 million PC's were sold last year and the top five OEM's were responsible for 50% of that. Selling 400,000 such Ubuntu machines (which may not be that ludicrous) would give an OEM a first mover's advantage versus the competition.

Repurposing machines bought with Windows with Linux after the purchase lets the OEM off the hook for support producing upset Linux users and only inflates the stats on the number of Windows machines sold - further solidifying Linux's fate on the desktop when OEM's consider ROI.

Call me selfish, but I just want a new top-down, heavily marketed Ubuntu supported laptop